Belong With Me
by kkolmakov
Summary: Just a kiss, and 'You belong with me.' 2x23. Oneshot.


**I know it's not my usual thing, but it practically wrote itself. I was rewatching** _ **Fringe**_ **, and it is my all time most favourite show. I don't think I've ever felt so close to any other fictional character as I feel to Olivia Dunham. Everything - every thought, every line, every move - makes sense to me. Her personality, her feelings, her empathy, her intuition, even the choices in clothes… I rewatch the show quite often, it's my 'comfort food for mind.' So, this little snippet happened :) I'm sure it's been done myriads times before, but why not? :)**

 **That's 2x23, the kiss on the other side.**

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She's standing in front of him, and everything is shaking inside. She's full of guilt, and empathy, and she feels his pain like it is hers. But she pushes both these thoughts back. She had known of course, she'd seen him glimmer, and she carried this burden with her. Because it wasn't hers, it was Walter's. But cortexiphan has enhanced her natural empathy, and she is now a wreck. She feels just as betrayed as Peter, and as much as a traitor as Walter does.

He is telling her about 'his father,' and it is a new wave of agony. All she can do is what she always does. She internalises, accepts the pain, and through it, she allows another person to grieve, and hopefully it makes it just a fraction less excruciating.

All she can say is "I'm sorry." Hers are never just words, she always means it. And she meets his eyes, letting him see that she is indeed - sorry.

He is looking at her, his beautiful green eyes are focused on her, but she senses the wall that he built, shielding himself from her. He has every right. She's been lying to him.

"How long did you know?"

She feels a knot in her throat, but she pushes through. She owes him this.

"A few weeks."

They talk, and she understand he isn't even considering going back. He says 'your world,' 'my father,' but all she can think of is 'my Peter.' Not in possessiveness, not hers to keep, but kindred, close. They've been through so much together. She just needs to let him see it, or more so, remind him of it.

"No, I don't belong here," he says, and his voice is hollow, and raspy. She'd never heard him like this, and she wants to somehow return that melody to his voice.

Peter's melody... She's not into metaphors, or colourful comparisons, but Peter has a melody. He whistles, he plays piano, there's a lilt to his voice. He played jazz for her once, although she asked for Bach. She hoped then he'd say 'no' and choose himself, and she felt smug for a moment that she understood him so well.

She does understand people easily. She reads them. It's a skill, and a talent, and makes her so good at what she does. He's one of the hardest to read. Not only because he is so reserved, hiding behind his masks, sometimes his jokes, sometimes his brooding, but because he is elusive. His 190 IQ, his past, his nomadic life... Even recently he's seemed to be adrift.

And now, they talk about where he belongs. And she knows that he doesn't belong in either universe, and he voices it out.

And that is when she understands that she needs to say it. To let him know. But to do so, she needs to open up, to take down the armour she's been wearing for as long as she remembers herself. She needs to strip, and be bare in front of him.

She's made the first step with John too, but it was different. They both knew the attraction was there, and it seemed so difficult then, and now she knows how simple it was. Because John was simple. His life wasn't, and his lies, and the secret he kept, but John was possible to understand, and to predict, even when she didn't have all information. With Peter, she knows, she will never have all of it. She will only have glimpses into his mind, his heart, and she cannot ask for more. But she also knows that she wouldn't need to. Because with Peter she feels.

She feels like she's never felt before. It is so much, and so many things are mixed. There's tenderness, and thrill, and companionship, and friendship. He irritates her, and excites her. And she wants him near her. Because that is where he belongs.

And she is talking, and his face is reserved, and there is this little crinkle between his eyebrows, she's seen it so many times. His eyes are cold, and he is keeping his distance, and she knows she has little time.

And she goes all in, and decides that the shortest path is the fastest.

"You have to come back. Because you belong with me."

She doesn't recognise her own voice, but it is her. It is just the Olivia that neither of them has ever heard before. This is the Olivia who needs her Peter to stay with her.

With John it was so simple: they were sitting in the restaurant, flirting, and she wore that dark green dress that they both loved so much. And it felt exhilarating, and she knew it was going well. She always knows how a conversation goes. Her empathy and her intuition, the curses and the blessings of her mind, and her innate gifts, and cortexiphan in her veins - these are her weapons, and the destruction is massive. She rarely says anything wrong, she always knows the answer.

She doesn't have the slightest idea how she's doing now. Her lips twitch, an unfamiliar wave of panic flooding her. She doesn't know what he thinks, what he feels, what he's going to answer. He is almost impossible to read on everyday basis. And now, all her senses are jumbled.

She is scared he'll say 'no.' She is relieved he is OK. She is afraid he'll never forgive her. She worries for Walter. She worried for Peter. But most of all she worries for herself. She's never been in love.

Her mind, her FBI trained eyes, her almost compulsive attention to details catch the slight smell of his cologne. It's different from what he wore on their side. And it is their side. If he says 'yes,' they will go back. She just needs to convince him.

The shirt is the dressiest she's ever seen him. And it bothers her, but excites her at the same time. She shortly thinks of his hands. She's seen them on a piano keys, and she hid even from herself how much she's been thinking about them since. And she knows they are warm, and the palms are firm, and the fingers are long and strong, and she saw them on a gun trigger, and lab equipment, and she needs them on her skin.

He blinks, just a sliver of surprise in his eyes, and she decides it's too late to back off, and with all honesty she doesn't want to.

She steps ahead, and her left hand lies on the warm skin of his neck, at the back. She brushes the right palm to his chest, but it curls into a fist, because she's just so uncertain, and scared, and worries he won't answer.

He doesn't, at first, but his lips are soft, and there's some sadness, and tenderness, and there's a second when she is still not certain, but then his right hand lies on her waist.

Her lips tremble, and she wants more, but she's afraid to ask. His left arm hangs passively along his body.

She's dreamt of him. She's wondered what he is like in bed. First, those were musings, then there was curiosity, and then... The fantasies she has of him are sometimes detailed, and sometimes she is in a rush, to rid herself of tension, or she spends a day with him, and she is so turned on when she finally comes home that she just rushes to her bedroom, jerking her clothes off. She knows he's experienced, and she wonders if he's rough, or passionate, or tender, or everything at the same time. She often thinks having Peter would be like having several lovers. When she's especially horny, she likes to imagine that he picked up some tricks in his many travels, and most ludicrous ideas come to her mind.

He kissed her before, in Jacksonville, but again, that doesn't count. Just like this kiss, there was too much noise, too much other things mixed into it.

If he goes back with her, if she's just convinced him, she will one day sit with him on the couch, with nothing to distract them, and she will explore him. She wants to know every little inch. She wants to savour a kiss. And then maybe other things. God, all those other things...

But first he has to say 'yes.'

She moves away, and meets his eyes. His are still sad, but there is a little sparkle of old Peter in them.

And then he smiles to her. Just a bit, in the very corners of his curved lips, and she can still taste them on hers, and she knows he isn't actually smiling, because there's no reason for it, but that answers her question, and he doesn't want to waste words.

"You do have a car, I presume." His tone is even, still raspy, and broken, but she nods.

They will talk more, they will talk about everything that's happening, and everything that happened, but now they need to go. There will be time.

There will be the next kiss.

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 **Facebook Writer's Page: Katya Kolmakov**

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{two romance webserials, both inspired by my writing here}

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{ _Blind Carnival_

modern romance/erotica humour story, initially written here}

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 **My book on Amazon!**

 **CONVINCE ME THE WINTER IS OVER**

 **{my first novel**

 **inspired by the story initially written here}**

 **Available on Amazon in Kindle and Paper!**

* * *

 ** _Summary:_**

 _Renee Miller is a reclusive web designer who, after several hours of delirium from flu, wakes up to find a stranger in boxer briefs standing in her bathroom._

 _John is an archaeologist who finds himself stuck in a stranger's flat in a snowstorm._

 _Frozen in her neat and clean world of highly functional anxieties and her history of childhood trauma, Renee is perhaps the worst possible host for her flatmate's boyfriend's colleague. Yet, while the fervent gush of life that is John Greaves disrupts her carefully guarded existence, Renee finds herself gradually yearning for more._

 _Is John the first breath of Spring in her frigid world?_


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